Add a Little Whimsy to Your Home Decor

Good morning friends and happy summer! One of my favorite types of mixed media projects is home decor. I love to create unique pieces like this little shelf sitter that I can change in and out as the mood strikes.

This week we are teaming up with Whimsy Stamps and it came at the perfect time for me. We have a few chickens and have been dealing with a broody hen who wants to be a mama in the worst way. When I saw this little Honeycomb Pattern die by Whimsy Stamps, I knew it had to become a chicken coop of sorts! This tutorial is rather long but the technique used to create the chicken wire could be translated to so many other pieces.

I hope you enjoy the tutorial and that it inspires you to create your own home decor piece that is unique to you.

Chicken Shelf Sitter

Shelf Sitter Supplies:

Deco Foil Flock Transfer Sheets – Teal Waters, Emerald Greeen and Loud Lime

Deco Foil Transfer Foil Transfer Sheets – Bronze, Copper and Pewter

iCraft UltraBond Liquid Adhesive 

iCraft 3D Foam Strips

Glitter Spray 

Deco Foil Adhesive Pen

Eileen Hull Easy Cut Adhesive Sheets

Whimsy Stamps Honeycomb Pattern Die

Whimsy Stamps Clear Stamps – Polka Dot Pals – Fern 

Other Supplies: dollar store shadow box (see step one), Paints/brushes, colored pencils, sticks from outside, stamped or printed sentiment or quote, scissors, cardstock, leaf die and hot glue/gun.

Chicken Shelf Sitter Tutorial

STEP ONE:

Use a dollar store home decor piece to create a shadow box by flipping it over and painting the back. I’ve found that my dollar store has these little 6×6 pieces for almost every holiday. I always buy a few and keep them for this type of project.

Hint: If you can’t find something at the dollar store, check out the raw wood section at the big box craft stores.

STEP TWO:

Paint the inside of your shadow box using acrylic or craft paints. I used a combination of three blues and just blended lightly with a brush. Don’t forget to paint the raw edges of your box (I had to add black later because I forgot). Use the Deco Foil Adhesive Pen to add some foil to the background. Just scribble here and there with the Adhesive Pen and let dry until it comes to tack (almost dry but still sticky) and press a foil transfer sheet (dull side) against the tacky areas. When you gently peel it up you are left with foiled areas.

Hint: This is a great way to use your Foil Transfer Sheets scraps! I never throw away my scraps unless they are completely used. You can see in the bottom left photo that I used a scrap from another part of this project.

STEP THREE:

Color a printed or stamped image unique to your piece using colored pencils. I wanted my piece to be a sort of “country glam,” so I gave each of my fussy cut images a quick spray of Glitter Dust. I think this is a highly underused product that I sometimes forget I have. I really love how it adds a superfine glitter to the surface without obscuring your image. It’s really hard to see in this image but stick with me to the end and see Fern in all her glitter glory.

Add the images inside your shadowbox on the right side using Foam Tape for dimension.

Hint: This stuff will stick to almost any surface – Just imagine all the things in your home that need a bit of shine.

STEP FOUR:

Go outside! No really, go outside and collect some small sticks and branches. Cut the pieces down to fit inside the shadow box. To create as much dimension as possible I adhered to the sticks using 3D Foam Strips. I cut the strips into more narrow pieces and layered in between the branches, making sure to cover the foam completely with branches.

Hint: If you live in a more urban area, think shrubs. I used to go outside of my office building to the shrubs in the parking lot and pick up the dead pieces. Just remove the leaves and you have sticks.

STEP FIVE:

Okay, here’s where the real fun begins. You can see that I did a little tester before I committed fully to this process. I was looking for a fun dimensional leaf but I didn’t want a solid color. This process left me with varied tone leaves with the added benefit of texture. I added an Easy Cut Adhesive Sheet to my green cardstock and die-cut my leaves before peeling off the release paper. Make sure you die-cut with release paper facing up. Once you have all of your die-cut pieces, peel off the release paper and press the leaves to the different Flock Transfer Sheets. When you peel off the leaves, you will have beautiful, textured die-cuts. To save time you could flock the whole piece of green cardstock and then die-cut. I did mine this way to avoid waste.

Hint: Use any small leaf die you have in your stash. I used a Christmas holly leaf because it had several on one die and I’m kind of lazy that way 😉.

STEP SIX:

This step looks hard but it’s really not. I took a lot of pictures to make it as easy as possible to duplicate. Use the Whimsy Honeycomb Pattern die and die-cut 6 to 10 times from cardstock. Adhere the pieces together using, Ultrabond Liquid Adhesive, by overlapping just a few of the honeycombs along the edges to create your chicken wire.

The next part may seem superfluous, but it will add stability to your chicken wire. Apply an Easy Cut Adhesive Sheet to a piece of gray or silver heavy stock and Die-cut an additional 6-10 honeycombs from the side with the Adhesive Sheet. Adhere these pieces to your chicken wire. You don’t need to overlap this time but try to make sure that each piece covers bits from two pieces of the original chicken wire (if that makes sense). Once the original chicken wire is completely covered with the gray pieces, peel off the release papers.

Using pewter, bronze, and copper Foil Transfer Sheet pieces, foil the chicken wire by randomly pressing the dull side to the sticky side of the chicken wire. I used more pewter and bronze than copper but the bit of copper adds a rusty feel.

This part is optional but I like a more rustic feel. Using a paintbrush, paint watered down black craft paint over the entire chicken wire and quickly wipe off using a baby wipe or wet paper towel.

This step had many parts, but I think it was totally worth it. Check out the last picture, it’s the best shot I could manage but it still doesn’t do it justice. The chicken wire looks AMAZING in person.

Hint: Die-cut the original honeycombs from brown cardstock so you don’t have to color it as I did.

STEP SEVEN:

Now we get to play with all of the little leaves we created earlier. Starting with the teal flocked leaves, hot glue them to the branches, spacing them out and leaving room for the other two colors. Add the emerald green flocked leaves next and lastly the loud lime. In the last image, you can see how I laid my chicken wire on to see how the tree works behind it. The chicken wire does not provide full coverage because I wanted my tree to peek out the top. Make sure to add some fallen leaves around the base of the tree.

Hint: If you want more of your tree to show, create a fence of sorts with your chicken wire so that it only goes up half-way. You could even use more sticks from the yard to build your fence with the chicken wire.

STEP EIGHT:

Stamp and color your Fern image, spray her with Glitter Dust (I’ll have another picture below where you can really see her shine), and fussy cut.

Adhere your chicken wire to the front of the shadow box and trim any overhanging pieces. Adhere Fern to the left side using Foam Tape.

Finish with a stamped for printed sentiment strip adhered with Foam Tape as well.

This project was really difficult to photograph. The chicken wire, while being one of the stars of the show, does not block your view to the inside as it appears in the photos. This piece turned out so cute that it immediately went into my sitting room where I will see it daily!

This shot shows Fern’s Glitter.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial (even though it’s sooo long lol) and it inspires you to surround yourself with your own works of art!

Wendy

Thank you so much for stopping by today!

Whimsy Stamps & ThermOWeb Giveaway!

It would NOT be a collaboration if we didn’t have a Giveaway! After all…it’s hard to see all these amazing ideas and not have the goodies to create! So BOTH ThermOWeb AND Whimsy Stamps are giving away $25 Gift Cards on BOTH of our sites. That’s double the chance to win! We’ll pick one winner here and they’ll select a winner as well! So be sure to visit both blogs and enter!

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